The “World-Famous” Lipizzaners

They trail the trademark Royal Lipizzans, a day or three later, eschewing big arenas named after software for more questionable, outdoor venues, county fairs like this, where you wander among pygmy goats at dusk to locate the gate, always pay cash. There are fewer white stallions here, and they don’t jump as high, but the crowd of fat men, angular women, and their sleepy, sun-kissed kids cheers wildly and stomps its boots in time to brave Beethoven squeezed from two tiny speakers. That’s the way, Santa Rosa, barks the commentator in his iridescent blue suit, a decade or two past Vegas. These horses love it when you make a lot of noise! So do the red-uniformed women riders, who grin resolutely through quadrilles, caprioles, and airs above the ground, broadcasting their teeth. Best of all, these horses like to jiggle from the ring, halt, then bolt breakneck for the barn—whee! Hang the rules! A stud stampede of Royal Riding School truants! Oh, less than venerable Viennese, elbows pumping their horny white stallions barnward at suicidal speeds, driving Santa Rosa mad with glee, as mushroom clouds of dust ascend under the klieg lights, coating our throats! Get a load of how they do this in California, oh, Emperor Franz Josef, oh, Elisabeth, mournful Empress, oh, Troy Tinker of the blue neon suit! We eat this dust, we yell for more.